make her consent!" cried the child, speaking
as if driven to desperation. "What's she ever done for me but teach me
mean ways? Keep me or kill me, for I must be in some place where I've a
right to be away from mother. I've found that there's no sense in her
talk, and it drives me crazy."

Although Jane's words and utterance were strangely uncouth, they
contained a despairing echo which the farmer could not resist. Turning
his troubled face to his wife, he began, "If this is possible, Alida,
it will be a great deal harder on you than it will on me. I don't feel
that I would be doing right by you unless you gave your consent with
full knowledge of--"

"Then please let her stay, if it is possible. She seems to need a
friend and home as much as another that you heard about."

"There's no chance of such a blessed reward in this case," he replied,
with a grim laugh. Then, perplexed indeed, he continued to Jane, "I'm
just as sorry for you as I can be, but there's no use of getting my
wife and self in trouble which in the end will do you no good. You are
too young to understand all that your staying may lead to."

"It won't lead to mother's comin' here, and that's the worst that could
happen. Since she can't do anything for me she's got to let me do for
myself."

"Alida, please come with me in the parlor a moment. You stay here,
Jane." When they were alone, he resumed, "Somehow, I feel strangely
unwilling to have that child live with us. We were enjoying our quiet
life so much. Then you don't realize how uncomfortable she will make
you, Alida."

"Yes, I do."

"I don't think you can yet. Your sympathies are touched now, but
she'll watch you and irritate you in a hundred ways. Don't her very
presence make you uncomfortable?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, she can't stay," he began decidedly. "This is your home,
and no one shall make you uncomfortable--"

"But I should be a great deal more uncomfortable if she didn't stay,"
Alida interrupted. "I should feel that I did not deserve my home. Not
long ago my heart was breaking because I was friendless and in trouble.
What could I think of myself if I did not entreat you in behalf of this
poor child?"

"Thunder!" ejaculated Holcroft. "I guess I was rather friendless and
troubled myself, and I didn't know the world had in it such a good
friend as you've become, Alida. Well, well! You've put it in such a
light that I'd be almost tempted to take the mother, also."